July 13-15, 2007: NIRS information table at Michigan Peace Fest in Lacota about one of the oldest and most dangerously deteriorated reactors in the country – Palisades nuclear power plant on the Lake Michigan shoreline. See http://www.michiganpeacefest.com/ for more information on the event.

Participants in the August 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp hold banners on thebeach at Van Buren State Park on the Lake Michigan shoreline in southwest Michigan. The Palisades containment dome, steam rising from the mechanical draft cooling towers, and Lake Michigan itself are visible in the background. The left-hand banner reads "For our children's future, No more nuclear power." The right-hand banner reads "Nuclear-Free Great Lakes: Sustainable Energy for the New Millenium.

Participants in the August 2000 Action Camp hold a "Nuclear-Free Great Lakes: Sustainable Energy for the New Millenium" banner in Van Buren State Park in southwest Michigan, with Lake Michigan, the Palisades nuclear plant containment dome, and steam rising from the mechanical draft cooling towers visible in the background. In the foreground, along with street theater costumes such as "Seeing Dollars Signs" (an eyeball with a dollar sign, representing the greed of the nuclear industry which throws caution to the wind), white crosses bear the names of communities in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois that could be devastated from a large-scale radiation release from Palisades.

Alice Hirt of Don't Waste Michigan speaks to participants of the August, 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp on the Lake Michigan shoreline at Van Buren State Park in soutwest Michigan. She is flanked by Michael Keegan of the Coalition for a Nuclear-Free Great Lakes and Kevin Kamps of NIRS. The lake is visible in the background, as is the steam rising from Palisades' mechanical draft cooling towers. In the foreground, white crosses represent communities in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois that coould be devastated -- depending on wind direction and the flow of Lake Michigan -- from a large radioactivity release from Palisades.

Kevin Kamps of NIRS explains to participants of the August 2000 Nuclear-Free Great Lakes Action Camp that due to its highly embrittled reactor pressure vessel, the emergency core cooling system at Palisades could actually cause a pressurized thermal shock to the metal, causing it to fracture like a hot glass under cold water. A large-scale radiation release would, among many other things, result in the destruction of milk from 879 surrounding dairy herds, according to official State of Michigan radiological emergency plans. Similarly, a severe radiation release from the Cook nuclear power plant just 30 miles south of Palisades would result in the ruin of 431 dairy herds. The hammer, shattered glass vessel, and empty milk jugs on the beach at Van Buren State Park -- immediately adjacent to Palisades on the Lake Michigan shoreline -- symbolize these points. Dozens of white crosses represent the communities in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois that could be wiped out by a major accident or attack at Palisades.